I never noticed this until I read this thread. I played a 2 channel stereo cd this moring. I hear this noise, only when my ear is pressed against the fabric of my speaker covers. Virtually 1 inch away and closer. I hear nothing from my listening position at all. Also when I pause the cd there is no loud noise heard. Volume also doesn't increase or decrease this floor standing noise. I have had other recievers that had the same noise. I don't think this will be an issue......

Steven Simon
HTF Administrator

I can confirm that this is the case... using my Sony CD player on optical input. The noise is not very noticeable, but registers at about 54dB with my Radio Shack meter half an inch from a tweeter. It does not seem to be volume control dependent. It is also nearly inaudiable from a foot or two away.

I doubt it is my interconnects because I'm using the Outlaw PCA from the 950 to the 755 and the Outlaw PDO from the Sony to the 950. It could be in the power, though; I'm only using a cheap power strip and I have no idea what's going on in the walls of my apartment. Most likely, though, it's coming from the 950.

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Matthew J. Hill
matt@idsi.net

I cannot hear any hiss in mine. My family is going out later, I will get the house dead silent and try again then.

But right now, with reasonable silence, I can hear no sign of hiss.

I have all dedicated power for my HT, all shielded IC's and am using a coax digital.

BB

I noticed this right from the start when I checked for hum. I also noticed it completly goes away if you switch sources until the volume is changed or a signal is applied. I was happy I didn't have any hum.
Maybe it's from the volume control IC. Since we hear it when the analog bypass is selected that rules out noise from the digital signal path(SPDIF,DSP,DAC).
Switching digital cables should never change a noise threshold anyway, it's digital.

I've never been able to see hiss on a scope. I used MC33284's in my filters(Burr-Brown rep never gave me any samples, jerk!) and they hiss quit a bit.
Overall my hiss is about the same as my old system. I can't hear it accross the room, only right next to the speaker.
It's more noise than I expected.

OK, I've rechecked mine with the house silent.

There is an extremely low level of hiss. No hum at all. As described by others, this is only audible with my head RIGHT AGAINST the grill cloth. It is as low as the level of hiss I get from my Norh preamp, which is virtually none.

If I had my TV on, the noise from it would be far more noticeable (flyback transformer whine, etc.).

So, either something in your environment/system is affectinng your 950, or there is a problem with your unit, or their manufacturing parameters are unacceptably variant.

hmmmmmm.

BB

I've used my 950(s) for 120+ hours in the last month since the first one arrived, and never noticed this hissing.

After seeing this thread pop up, I went and tried to reproduce it. I can hear the hiss about 3 inches away from the panel on my MLs, but only after I've turned off everything in the room (projector, TV, fans, A/C, halogen lights).

It's definately something in the 950, because if you switch digital input modes, it disappears until the volume is adjusted, and there seem to be other things that make it come and go.

It's certainly not loud enough in my system to be a problem. It's completely undetectable from 1ft away from the speaker.

- Mike

[QUOTE]I was running a Yamaha RX-V3000 with a Parasound 2205 amp

I have a Yamaha RX-V2095 and a Parasound 2205. I've wondered about what diferences I would find if I switched to the Outlaw 950 - ie - Is is a definite improvement, mostly the same, or worse sounding than the Yamaha as a pre/pro? I'm not talking about add'l features, or the noise floor problem - Just your gut impression of what level of improvement in 2 channel and HT the 950 brings. Is it an improvement on the scale of adding a Parasound 2205 to the your Yamaha receiver? Do you finf that you miss any of the Yamaha soundfields?

Sorry for the question blitz - I'm interested in your first impressions of the 950 as a Yamaha RX-V300 replacement.

Thanks in advance.

Bill

This is a crosspost from the related thread on HTF:

Based on this thread, I went and did some spot checks with my Outlaw 950 connected to an Aragon 8008x3 amp. (Just checked the front channels.)

I couldn't hear a blessed thing with my ear right on the NHT 2.5 and the Outlaw 950 set to 0Db reference level, listening to a digital input with nothing attached to it.

I wouldn't take no noise for an answer, though. That wouldn't help any of the folks who are having problems. So, I decided to experiment with different power input configurations.

I found that if I plugged the Aragon amp directly into the wall (as opposed to the power filter. And I'm just using a Tripp Lite Isobar) I could hear a bit of low volume hiss/hum. Note that in my standard setup I have the Aragon plugged into one of the isolated outputs on the Isobar -- not the Db outlets (if you're familiar with the unit, this will mean something to you.) Plugged into a DB outlet, I hear some "compression" of the sound and less separation/air.

I haven't believed in power conditioners but maybe I have to change my tune based on this experiment. Damn. I don't wanna blow hundreds on another component.

Based on my system I'd be inclined to think the hiss and hum problem people are having may be something outside the 950 (or an issue with an individual unit.) If you can hear noise at 12 feet, there is something seriously at fault.

I do find that the 950 may be more susceptible to external hum/hiss than my old H/K Sig 2 pre/pro. But that may be due to a lower noise floor. I DID have to put more effort into chasing down external noise with the Outlaw than with my previous setup. The effort paid off with blessed silence, however.

Asx,

I tried hooking up my 300MHz Tek scope last night and was having a problem seeing any of the 950's noise, since it was being buried by other noise. I think my probes and RCA jack arrangement were picking up too much spurious crap. I'm not kidding when I said there's a powerful FM tower in town. Most of the time, I can hear it on my telephone over the dialtone!

I need to go to Radio Shack and pick up a BNC->RCA adapter so I can go straight out of the 950 into the scope, bypassing the probes.

Though, I do have some 50 ohm BNC cables and some of the opposite sex BNC->RCA adapters. That would work as well...

I will give it another shot when I get a chance. I was out of town all day today, so I didn't get to do much of anything.

Hmm.. I just checked my caller ID box. Looks like Peter Tribeman tried to call me four times today - I'm assuming it's about this issue. Not only that, but looking at the number, he lives in the town adjacent to me. Small world!